Google’s Pitch to FDA for Online Drug Ads

Sure, dozens of groups are speaking at this week’s FDA meeting on online advertising for drugs and medical devices.

But we’re particularly interested in what Google had to say, given the company’s 800-pound-gorilla status in online advertising — as well as the flurry of FDA warning letters earlier this year regarding drug ads that ran with Google searches. Those letters, which said the brief text ads didn’t include required risk information, created a lot of uncertainty about what’s OK and what isn’t for online ads.

Google wants the FDA to create a standard template for the ads, which would include a link to the drug’s main page, a warning about safety risks and a second link to more risk information. NPR’s Shots blog has posted the slides Google used in its presentation; see page 12 of the slide deck for an example of what Google has in mind. (The drug industry came up with a somewhat similar set of recommendations, which is outlined here.)

In its presentation, Google said drug makers have responded to the FDA warning letters by changing the text in their ads; in one example, the phrase “learn about seasonal allergy treatment” was changed to “find more important product information.” Perhaps not surprisingly, given this example, click-through rates have fallen since the changes were put in place (see pages 9 and 10 of the slide deck).

Bonus Presentation: Pfizer’s presentation at the FDA meeting looked at a whole other slice of the online world — Sermo, the social media site for doctors. Read the testimony of Pfizer’s chief medical officer, who explained the system the company came up with for interacting with docs via Sermo.